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Not everybody has droughts; if you're doing longer term work it's fairly easy to book yourself (virtually) solid for the whole year. I've been doing what tptac

by mtrimpe 13y ago

Not everybody has droughts; if you're doing longer term work it's fairly easy to book yourself (virtually) solid for the whole year. I've been doing what tptacek calls 'staff augmentation' (i.e. drop me in any project that's in trouble and I'll make sure it goes faster/makes it deadline) and in 5 years I've never had more than a six week drought and even that was only because I didn't start looking until two weeks into that drought.

balfirevic 13y ago
Would you mind sharing some details about how you do this (make the project go faster)? Is what you bring to the table more of an organizational/process improvement or technical expertise?
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  Good question. I should write an ebook on that once ;) It's a lot of little things though. A few major ones that come to mind: Learn to scan entire code bases (+docs/wikis) to get a solid high-level overview of the entire system and fairly in-depth view of the parts under active development in at most a few days. Basically cram like you would for a last minute university exam. Blend in fully with current culture and process. If you choose not to, make sure you know the costs of change and do so only if you can decisively implement the change and have it deliver a net positive effect during your stay (hardest skill of all.) Quickly establish trust in your technical competence without being perceived as showing off. Usually jumping in to help fix bugs, giving colleagues 'aha-moments' and identifying (elusively obvious) fundamentals work well for me. Grab every opportunity you can to figure out what someone does and show them you're a good guy/girl, whether at lunch, in the elevator or even just in the hallway I call it 'collecting pointers into the organization.' TL;DR Work your ass off at the start to consciously do in a few weeks what normally happens by osmosis in a couple of months.

by mtrimpe 13y ago

balfirevic 13y ago

Would you mind sharing some details about how you do this (make the project go faster)? Is what you bring to the table more of an organizational/process improvement or technical expertise?

mtrimpe 13y ago
Good question. I should write an ebook on that once ;) It's a lot of little things though. A few major ones that come to mind: Learn to scan entire code bases (+docs/wikis) to get a solid high-level overview of the entire system and fairly in-depth view of the parts under active development in at most a few days. Basically cram like you would for a last minute university exam. Blend in fully with current culture and process. If you choose not to, make sure you know the costs of change and do so only if you can decisively implement the change and have it deliver a net positive effect during your stay (hardest skill of all.) Quickly establish trust in your technical competence without being perceived as showing off. Usually jumping in to help fix bugs, giving colleagues 'aha-moments' and identifying (elusively obvious) fundamentals work well for me. Grab every opportunity you can to figure out what someone does and show them you're a good guy/girl, whether at lunch, in the elevator or even just in the hallway I call it 'collecting pointers into the organization.' TL;DR Work your ass off at the start to consciously do in a few weeks what normally happens by osmosis in a couple of months.